Sunday, December 05, 2010

Teaching how to give presentation in English

yesterday, I was asked to tutor a bunch of students on how to give presentation in English. Mind you, English is not our first languange. Heck, it is probably our third or fourth languange. So, it was a challenging situation - an undestatement. On top of that, my tutorial was part of a 3-day tutorial. I didn't know what was given before my sesion.

The session started with a contunuation of previous session, which was making a presentation. (Again, I didn't know what they were taught before.) So, I went along.

Then, it was the presentation session. I divided the class into 5 to 6 person groups. There were 6 groups. And I told them that each of the member has to talk in front. How they divide was up to them. Presentation was set at 18-minutes/group. I asked the group to come forward one by one and I took notes of their presentations. At the end we discussed their presentations.

The result was okay. All of them made their presentations in time! It was amazing. I was afraid they would need more than 18 minutes. If it was in Bahasa Indonesia, I think many of them would cross the 18-minutes boundary :) It was just they were not comfortable to the language that they only talked as needed :)

I know it was a challenge to them. They have to understand and explain the content ... AND at the same time think in English :)

As for the presentation techniques, I think there's room for improvement. I am going to teach them some other time.